


Persephone's Curse

by Call_Me_Amissa



Category: Hades and Persephone - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Mythology - Freeform, Twelve Gods of Olympus (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-16 02:39:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19308943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Call_Me_Amissa/pseuds/Call_Me_Amissa
Summary: Persephone was not dead.He had waited so long. Hoped so long. And finally Hades had proof that his love was truly not dead.But at what cost?Thea does not know what to make of the nightmare she had the first night she slept in her new dorm. Neither does she have any memory about the new tattoo on her neck. Is it a weird ballerina? Is it a trident? Hell knows.The only thing she's sure of is that if she finds out, her life will change forever.





	1. Persephone and Hades - a love story

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first work I've ever posted on AO3  
> Thanks for opening it and thanks if you decide to keep reading   
> It was originally posted on wattpad too

Before

The queen of the underworld wakes beside him  
still wrapped in the musk of last night's passion.  
She will soon leave, for it is finally spring  
and she must be there in a timely fashion.  
This is hard for him, for she is his compulsion --  
her heart is breaking, like shattered glass,  
but this too, however painful, will soon pass.

As they lay together, he breathes her in,  
inhaling, exhaling, and trying to remember.  
He can smell the sunlight on her skin,  
bringing back memories of their September,  
but now she leaves him nothing but embers.  
She looks upon her love with sadness  
wishing she could end all this madness.

Her mother arrives, and is utterly disgusted.  
She views her son-in-law with no empathy.  
He knows this; he knows he is not trusted.  
Persephone kisses him with sympathy;  
her mother looks at it as filthy.  
She now, forcefully, leaves behind her lover,  
now following her overbearing mother.

-Saedah Coello


	2. The Loss of Persephone

A moment in the Underworld can mean a thousand years for the humans. Not that the gods ever cared about any of that.

Hades sure never cared, not when he had his Persephone, his ray of sunlight in a dark world. Then, he let her go, at her mother's demand. Demeter didn't know. She could never understand what her daughter meant to him. But then again, she always came back too. 

Months passed, and he'd rule alone. Then, when he'd least expect it, the scent of spring would flow on waves of musty air, filling his kingdom with honey and roses and easing the frown off his face. 

But once, hundreds of human years ago, Persephone did not go back to her ravishing dark home. 

Hades had waited, taking into consideration that time passed differently between realms, hoping that one day, he'd raise his head from useless paperwork - the Underworld was a kingdom, after all - and see her blue eyes smile at him with all the kindness the world had never deigned to show him.

He was still waiting, when, at the edges of his consciousness, he heard a summons. There were voices, maybe two dozens of them, all female, speaking in an ancient greek it was obvious they didn't understand. But he had not been summoned by humans in almost a millenia, and maybe it was curiosity, boredom, or simply fate, but he heeded the summons.


	3. Summon me a God

Thea

"Come on, girls, let's get down to business, we're not gonna be here all night!" clapped one of the older sorority members I had had no chance of retaining the name of earlier when they had all introduced themselves. 

I could swear I heard somebody beside me sing "To defeat the huns" as she spoke.

"Where did she find that book, anyways?" asked another one of the older girls as we climbed down the stairs to the cellar of the dorm house. Seemed like they were doing everything they could to look spooky - bright and early for Halloween, I guessed. Even though it wasn't for another month or so.

"I have no actual idea, she just went to the library to take out some books and came back only with that one. Talk about having an obsession."

I listened on to them talk about Kara, the girl who had come up with the idea of the sorority initiation ritual for this year, and what she planned on having us do. It was pretty simple, the five of us who were new had to stand in the middle of a circle as the other girls recited some creepy latin words to summon Lucifer or something like that at candle light. And then we had to say some creepy latin words ourselves.  And although I had seen enough horror movies to figure out this was probably a bad idea for more than ten thousand reasons, I was also kinda giddy at the thought - however ridiculous standing in a circle trying to summon the devil sounded. I also may have had a drink or two, as everybody here had. I don't think anyone would soberly agree to this.

We lit candles , one for each of us - twenty five in total, and then Kara started to place everyone in the spot that she thought perfect. She must have moved a blonde girl at least five times before she was pleased with her location. Then, it was our turn to be handled around as Kara tried to find the perfect setting. For some reason, being the shortest got me in the middle of the five of us. And apparently, we too had to hold hands. And stand four steps away from the girls behind. I was just relieved I wasn't the only one who could not stop laughing when Kara was coming up with another ridiculous rule.

When Kara was finally done, all the candles were lit again because we had put them off with our moving, and me and the other five girls were exactly four and ten steps away from the girls behind and in front of us, our leader for the night lifted the really old looking book from the table she had placed it on, "Okay, this is pretty simple, I'm gonna say it first, and then you all follow." Then, she looked at us, "But not you, newbies, you will say this." She came to us with her stuffy and dusty book and one of the girls took a picture of our part with her phone.

Kara went back to her place between two other girls, and placing the book on the table and linking hands with them, she started reciting. 

As soon as I heard her words, I almost started laughing again, for no actual reason besides the fact that I had taken latin classes in high school, and I was pretty sure what she was saying there wasn't latin. 

More like ancient greek, tried a voice in my head, which was even funnier, because there was no way I  knew greek, be it ancient or not. Okay, I must have been a little bit more than tipsy.

By the time we finished reciting our part, also holding hands and looking into the girl's phone, I was pretty sure there had been something more than tequila in my drink, because actual fog, dark fog, excuse me, was starting to form out of nowhere in the cellar and I could swear I heard a dog howling. Okay, the dog might have been from the outside. Still hella creepy.

And if by the time a man started taking shape in front of us, bringing with him the chill of a winter night, I wasn't entirely sure I'd been slipped something in my drink, I was pretty much convince when he started talking. Standing in the space between the five of us and the girls in front of us - ten steps, I remembered rather numbly - his voice sounded like he was whispering in my ear. I was sure the others were experiencing the same thing, for it looked like they had all stopped breaking. Even blinking.

"What am I being summoned for, mortals?" He looked at each and every one of the girls forming the circle, his gaze leaving theirs being like a reminder for them to breathe.

"What could some tiny mortal women want from the Lord of the Underworld?" his silky voice was sliding around my ears, along with the shadows - the dark fog - that had accompanied him. 

Holly Jesus, we had actually summoned something. The Underworld, from my vast knowledge of greek mythology that was mainly having read all of Rick Riordan's books at least twice, was like hell and heaven all mashed together. The souls of the dead were believed to go there, first having to pass the river Styx. And if the person was worthy, they'd reach Elysium. If if was not, it would wander forever in some fucked up forest of the lost or some shit like that. And if this man - this incredibly godly looking man, was the Lord of the Underworld, it meant this was Hades. And we were, mythologically, so fucked. Okay, maybe less fucked than if Ares or Zeus had shown up, if the legends about Hades being the tamest of his siblings were to believed, which I was highly doubting at the present moment, but a girl can hope to live another day. 

His gaze finally slid to the five of us, and I was suddenly so regretting that Kara had placed me in the middle, because he fixed his gaze right on me. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. If I could have moved - I hadn't realized before, but I could not even lift a finger - I would've ran so far I would've probably fallen off the face of the earth. Which did not seem like such a bad predicament as his eyes trailed up and down me, something close to not disinterest in them. Fuuuck. If I was dreaming, this was about the right time for my alarm to sound. I'll even hapily go to class. 

Hades smirked as he spoke again, "You know, back in the day, when people still held some respect for my kind, summonings were only held to please the gods. The humans used to give us offerings - all kinds of them." 

He stepped closer to me and took my chin in his hand. "I think I like this one best." 

His other hand moved to my shoulder, resting on the spot where it met my neck, and pain seared through me. Again, I was having fantasies about falling off the face of the earth to my death. Every fate was better than the pure terror I was experiencing. Terror and - something else, something I could not quite grasp, coiling in my stomach and making me meet his eyes as he said, "Yes, you will do." 

There was a loud hush and I saw the flame of the candle I had lit rise up, almost as high as the table Kara's book was on, and then go out completely, leaving behind the intoxicating smell of smoke that would have come from a forest fire.  
With the corner of my eyes, I could see Hades' gaze was still stuck on me.


	4. Traces of the Past

The kitchen in our dorm house was almost empty in the morning. Goes to show how much college students enjoy being bright and early, I guess, but I for one could not sleep anymore. 

I actually did not even remember going to bed last night. Or how our little summoning ritual had ended. I must have had way too much to drink and not realized, which was rather peculiar - I hadn't blacked out ever since tenth grade summer camp, and I blamed the ridiculous amount of absinthe we had purchased for that. But it couldn't have been anything else besides alcohol, so that's it.

"Good morning, sunshine," said one of the girls - Larissa maybe? - sitting down at the table with a bowl chock full of cereal. "Thea, right?"

I yawned and sat down beside her, picking up a bowl sitting on the table and the carton of milk. "Yep, Thea, morning to you too." I answered, rather glumly, pouring some cereal. I was so not a morning person.

There was suddenly a sharp pain in my shoulder and I cringed and swore.

"Are you okay?" asked Larissa as she leaned in to check on the spot between my neck and shoulder I had placed my hand on. "Ohh, that's rather nice! But you should keep it protected if it's new, it could get infected. Maybe that's why it hurts."

I stared dumbly at her. "Keep what protected?" 

She smiled like my mom used to when I was being incredibly stupid. "The tattoo, dummy!" She pointed to my neck. "I saw your neck the day before yesterday, when you arrived, and it was not there. You should've had a band aid over it, at least....who's the asshole who didn't bandage your tattoo?"

I had seriously no idea what she was talking about and was in dire need of a mirror. I couldn't have gotten a tattoo, for Heaven's sake. I did not remember getting a tattoo. But then again, I could not remember most of last night. Fuuck. Nope. I had not gotten a tattoo.

I could not get to a mirror fast enough, and by the time I remembered there had to be one in the bathroom, I was full on panicking. I fumbled with the doorknob and when I finally reached the goddamned mirror, my jaw fell to the floor. Right there, in the crook of my neck, where I still felt sharp bursts of pain every few seconds, was a mark. My first throught was that it looked like a ballerina twirling with her hands up, but a more serious approach told me it was a new moon with a dot inside on top of a dagger. Which also sounded way cooler than the ballerina, but knowing drunk me, it was probably the former rather than the latter. I sighed.  
When had I even had the opportunity to go get a tattoo. It wasn't like there were any parlors nice and handy on campus. 

I felt around the strange symbol with two fingers. I knew how new tattoos looked. This one didn't seem new. Maybe it was one of those temporary thinghies - but then why did it hurt like this?

"Are you okay?

Larissa was standing in the doorway, giving me a funny but concerned look.

"I don't remember getting this tattoo last night. Where did I even go?"

What had all of us done, actually. It was starting to nagg at me that I could not remember anything past starting chanting.

Larissa laughed, then squinted at her reflection in the mirror, "I don't remember either. But I did have like a lot of the good stuff. Must've passed out cuz I woke up in my bed."

My eyes went wide. "You too?"

She nodded, almost solemnly, then laughed again, "It's called being a lightweight, welcome to the club, honey."

She came closer and took another look at my newly aquired peculiar tattoo. "Do you know what it means?"

"It kinda looks like a ballerina." I said, leaning on the shower door, resigned to the new design on my skin. "Hell knows what was in my head."

"Sophie and Jade don't remember much of last night either, if it makes you feel better. You're not the only newbie who blacked out big time. Hell, maybe they got tattoos too."

I highly doubted that, but I did talk to Larissa a little while longer when we got back to the table to finish off our milk cereal. As we were eating, more girls started gathering in the kitchen and pulling out different kinds of food from the already packed fridge - had we also stuffed the fridge with food last nigh? I could bet it wasn't that full yesterday.

Listening to them talk, I came to a conclusion that might have been a relief, had I not had this sinking feeling in my stomach. 

None of the girls that had taken part in the sorority's initiation ritual remembered anything beyond starting chanting last night. And it was way too much of a coincidence to let it slide. But then again, what could have happened?

***

Even though it was already autumn, the sun was shining brightly through the white clouds in the sky, warming my skin, reason for which I was really glad I had chosen to wear my loose, knee long, blue dress. That, and the fact that I loved the way it swayed around me when the wind blew.

It was still rather early to be heading to class, but I had left with a half an hour to spare on purpose, so that I could have the time to stroll through campus unbothered. I hadn't really had the time to admire the actual beauty and work that had been put into taking care of the flowers adornig the sidewalks when I first arrived here, being busy with moving in and all that.  
And the view was a good distraction from the fact that my new tattoo still twinged with sharp bursts of pain every few minutes, usually when I'd just forgotten about it.

But god, didn't this whole place look like paradise. Green Meadows University was certainly the best Minnesota had to offer, at least in terms of enjoying a nice view as you stress your liver out with partying and then stress your mind out about being on the verge failing more than half your courses. Fun things like that.

Passing the dorm houses on campus - which honestly looked like some ancient artist had been assigned to design them, not that I was complainig - I eyed a fancy looking coffee shop, chiars and tables and cute colourful umbrellas outside and all that, and I tried telling myself that I wasn't going to spend my whole allowance there. Like the liar I was.

The school building was just as impressive, decorations that I'd only seen in movies and mythology books swirling around the big wooden entrance doors that were swung wide open. The course I had to get to was on the second floor, so with minutes to spare still, I strolled up the stairs, transfixed with the way everything in the building, even inside, seemed to fit together - excuse me, this was a great upgrade from Hazelwood state high school.

Once I found the class - I had truly feared I wasn't going to, knowing my luck sometimes - I sat down in a chair next to the window as any sun loving fellow would and started going through the textbook I had taken out of the library yesterday.

As much fun as world history wasn't, I really needed to not fail this one course. It's one of those that one doesn't actually need but it's still included in the curriculum.  
For what reason exactly, I had no idea.  
I had signed up for botany not a rehash of the most boring class I ever attended in high school, after all.


	5. Not Persephone

Aidan/Hades

It could not have been her. It was plainly impossible.

The girl - that girl that looked so much like Persephone, his Persephone - was human. Utterly and irrevokably human. He could smell it on her and feel it in the way that she walked - her mortality. 

But she had met his gaze, stared him right into the eyes, seemingly through him, with those two spheres of green the same shade as the leaves of the trees that she had grown in the Underworld. Trees that had long ago wilted, when they had realized that their queen was not coming back, along with her unending garden where they had spent so many moments. Shared so many secrets.

But it couldn't be her. His Persephone was dead.

She had fought, and lost.  
Her being alive, and human, was purely impossible. Unhead of. Her essence had been ripped apart, tore into a million little pieces and then melted out of existence. There had been nothing left, the Lord of the Underworld would know.

That didn't stop him from hoping though. After all, hoping she'll somehow get back to him was all he'd been doing since she Faded. Faded, because gods did not die. Dying meant your soul ended up somewhere - in the Underworld, if you happened to have a demigod as an ancestor.  
Knowing there had been nothing left of her after the fight also did nothing to stop him from doing something he knew was stupid and reckless.  
And so he had marked the human girl that looked like his lover with his sigil, right in the spot where he knew she had loved to be teased. He still could not explain what had come over him to do it. Maybe the loss had finally taking his toll on him, pushing him to act foolish.  
He then wiped the memory of each and every girl who had been in the room that night - including hers. If this was truly his Persephone, she would remember him, eventually. He was sure she would. His dark tulip was strong. Fierce. Whatever had happened, it would not stop her from going back to her old self.   
Reluctantly, he made a double take.   
If it was not her, he wasn't going to ruin the life of a mere mortal with the bidings of gods. He knew what falling for humans did to both parts. The toll it took.   
No, it was going to hurt him worse than ripping his own skin off his immortal bones, but he was going to leave her alone.

He wasn't a monster. At least he hoped he could refrain himself from being, for the sake of that girl.

So he decided to wait. 

The wait was horrible, and he was feeling his resolve wilting just like his lover's brilliant garden had, after just one human night. He noticed time had started to sync in to the mortal realm again, like back when his Persephone was promised to him, and her arrival in his dark palace brough cold weather for the humans. He didn't know if to take it as mockery on his behalf or a sign from the Fates.

He truly hoped it was a sign, as he vanished again from his seat on the throne in the room lined with skeletal guards and made an appearence back where he knew she was. 

Standing in the shade of some trees, he had not expected to catch her alone. Or admiring the flowers on the sidewalk in a pastel blue sundress, a certain skip to her steps as the sun warmed her already tanned skin, long hazel hair flowing down her back. 

This could not be anyone but her. She looked exactly as she had that day, millenia ago. That day when Zeus had blatantly said he was free to take her, and in a frenzied stupor, after watching her have another fight with Demeter, he actually had. 

He still cringed when he thought of that day, and the regret that followed as he saw the betrayed and angered look on her face. She had not wanted to be saved. She could hold her own ground, she had said. And while being yelled at, he thought that right then and there was the moment he fell in love.  
He knew he had deserved the tree branch that had hit him full in the face when they first landed in the Underworld. He had known even back then that stealing her away had been a mistake.

He regretted not having waited the conclusion of that argument, for her to boldly answer Demeter's threats to have her locked up if she did not behave.

But neither him, not her, had regretted anything that followed.  
Not as she ruled over the Underworld with an iron fist even he wouldn't have managed.   
He certainly had not regretted anything when he saw her start donning dark dresses and wearing her hair in complicated twists that seemed to move in time with her breathing.   
That was not to say he did not like when her hair was down. Hells, he loved it with his whole being.   
He loved Persephone.  
And honestly, he was not sure at all he'd be able to do the right thing if that girl was not her.


	6. Gave her a Pomegranate

Thea

The air in the room seemed to shift and so did I when the door to the classroom suddenly creaked, then opened.

My first thought when I saw the man who, was probably a couple of years  older than me, walk in was who the even fuck wears a full black tuxedo and what were probably designer shoes in goddamn college.   
I had barely bothered to proprely brush my hair, but I was pretty sure his was being treated with products on a daily basis, cuz god, wasn't it the perfect shade of fashionably short raven.   
Man, this guy looked like he had just found out he had class at nine and a fashion show at ten.  
He also kinda looked like one of those dark and broody characters in cartoons.  
Not that I was making any comparisons out of interest.

He went to talk to the lecturer and I would have gotten right back to trying to understand my notes - the teach was one of those people who spoke very fast - had I not been close enough to hear his voice.   
He was saying something about having been sent as a professor's help, but it wasn't his words that caugh my attention and send a shiver of bad feelings down my spine.   
It was his voice.   
I had heard that voice before. I could hear the words even now.  
I guess you will do   
I had woken up this morning to these words, remainders of the nightmare I'd had about our little summoning sketch getting a bit too much of a horror Percy Jackson feel. But this couldn't be the same voice.   
Some creepy resemblance, probably the universe telling me I'd had enough good luck these past months and it was high time I started to earn my keep in some cosmic way.  
Even having dismissed it, his voice still sent bad kind of shivers through me when he and the professor turned to the rest of the class and she introduced him as Aidan Kalias, a last minute transfer from some Greek university, and announced he was going to assist her in class.  
What assistance could she need in teaching? It wasn't like we were in primary school and he needed to hand us scrissors for arts and crafts.  
He walked to an empty desk two rows in front of me, pure grace in his steps - not that I was looking, he was certainly way too pampered up and his presence still tingled my spidey-senses.

The professor - mrs. Antonia, a middle aged woman with hair dyed a vibrant shade or red smiled indulgently at the rumour that had settled over the class.

"Quiet, please, I believe we've had enough distraction for the next week."

She walked to the board she had brought with her and pointed to a scheme of a fruit that I was pretty sure was a pomegranate.   
My stomach lurched and I wasn't even looking at the real fruit, but I was already on the point of being nauseous.   
I hadn't tasted one until a couple years back, when a friend had brought one to school for some reason, so I had no way of knowing I was utterly allergic o those things. That wasn't to say I hadn't liked the taste. I'd probably liked it too much, for I had eaten half of that thing by myself - and then broke out in the worst of rashes and puked my guts out for two days straight. I couldn't even look too intently at the picture.  
Some people couldn't stand the sight of blood, I liked to keep as far away from pomegranates as possible.  
Mrs. whatever her name was started talking again, kinda helping my predicament but not really.  
"I am going to suppose you already know what fruit this is." She looked around the class for a few moments, then went on, "I want to talk about the importance of this fruit - it's a pomegranate, for those of you who did not know, especially the boy in the back who doesn't seem to be paying attention at all. Coming to class is a choice, you know? If you'd rather check your facebook every five seconds, you could stay home."  
A heard someone snicker and I supposed it was the guy sitting next to facebook boy.

"But I digress. I want us to have an open conversation about what pomegranates have meant to history across the years. I know this is a rather abrubt topic change, but I think it's a better way of approaching history for all of you who don't actually want to be here."

Well this was mainly a biology university, so she did have a point. Almost nobody in the class truly cared about history. But for some reason it was in the curriculum.

A few people snickered at her not that veiled allusion, but as she saw nobody try to start a conversation, she went on, "Fine, I'm going to start, but I do want contributions from you. Speaking in class will bring you extra points in the final exam."

Well too bad this was history, then. I could drone on and on about virtually any other subject I had signed up for.

"For example, King Solomon of Israel had his crowm designed to look similar to a pomegranade."  
She looked around the class again. Everyone was watching her intently, including me, having no idea what to say. Like, yes, the bit of information was rather interesting, but what was I or anyone else supposed to add to that?

In the silence that followed the professor's voice, Aidan's words echoed in a way that did not seem natural at all. He turned to the rest of the class as he spoke.  
"They were also believed to be a symbol of fertile land, as people of Ancient Greece offered them to the goddes Demeter, along with prayers for a good farming season or a gentle winter."   
Oh well, Percy Jackson never did mention that.  
"This custom, of course, originated in the myth of Hades and Persephone."  
I could swear he was looking right at me as he went on, "which says that by eating six pomegranate seeds, the goddess of spring was forever bound to the Underworld. Not that it was the fruit in itself that mattered, but the action of eating something grown in a foreign realm."   
I swear he was staring. I tried my best to not meet his gaze. What the even fuck was up with this guy? He totally freaked me out.  
I could feel his eyes slid off me, but his voice was still echoing in the class, seemingly moving in eerie ways around my ears, "And this is, of course, where the rumour that it is a symbol of imprisonment started, for back in the day, the custom was that if somome ate the seeds of a pomegranate in a foreign country, they were bound by honour to return there."  
Percy Jackson certainly hadn't taught me that, which, by the way, was pretty cool, historically speaking.

After he finished talking, a couple more people raised their hands and said something about the fruit being said to have been made from the blood of Adonis or some shit like that, which honestly did not make me any mord eager to ever taste the red devil frut again, but my attention was not on the conversation - I was concentrating really hard on a spot on my notebook, trying with all my might to ignore the fact that the dresses up to the nines man a few meters away from me was probably digging holes inside my head with his stare.  
And it annoyed the hell out of me that I did not have the guts to raise my eyes and look back and maybe get him to drop his stare as I would have usually done.   
But if he was going to continue to be creepy, I would have to conforont him about it. Eventually. Even though all the bones in my body told me to steer as clear away from him as humanly possible.

For a second, I couldn't help but think back to my nightmare, and the fact that the thing we had summoned had had that exact same stare.  
But that was just plainly impossible.  
Maybe I'd seen him somewhere before and I just could not recall it.

**Author's Note:**

> This is,obviously, not really my chapter or a chapter at all, but it's the poem that inspired me to write this story. Click next chaper for more? *she said, stuck in 2013


End file.
